Haiti

I almost don't want to think about the eathquake in Haiti...and all the people who are suffering right now. Each time something like this happens...I become overwhelmed with the images of the people..and the fear that it could happen to us and the guilt for my own comforts while others are suffering. Our mortal life is so fragile. Our comforts could be fleeting. It is a reminder of that fact. I am honestly, very accustomed to being "comfortable"...the discomforts I feels are miniscule in contrast to what people are going through in Haiti right now. It is important to donate money if you can...or to help others who are suffering..I am glad that there are easy ways to donate towards the victims in Haiti.

One of the easiest, I found was to Text "HAITI" to 90999. The red Cross will get $10 and you'll be billed the $ on your next cell bill. I think $10 is worth it to help save a life. One less lunch out...



"When a crisis sweeps over the world no person should hope to remain intact. We belong to an organic unit and when one part of the organism suffers all the rest of the body will feel its consequence." -Bahá’í Scriptures

10 Years Ago

Sacred Petal by Prachuap Chaikham-udom seen on Novica -05

Ten years ago. During the worry over Y2K; I was at my mother's funeral in New Hampshire.  Then spending the evening with Baha'is bringing the New Year..the new century.  Has it really been 10 years since I have talked to my mother..seen her face..??  It has been an amazing decade in my life begun with my mother's passing into the next world..Heaven, the Abha' Kingdom. A hard start, but a fruitful time.  I miss her...  I'm going to post what I said on Facebook on December 28th. (the date of her passing):

"Honoring my mother in my thoughts today. Ten years ago today she crossed over. She was the sweetest, most loving, and most determined soul. She had a wonderful smile that was truly radiant. And she was a very devoted mother to me; and wife to my father. She put others before herself. She was a dedicated Baha'i. And a strong woman. She had patience and transcendence. I wish her joy and peace in the next world....in Heaven, the Abha' Kingdom..


Wishing you----a joyful next year and decade...  Welcome 2010.

Comfort in Times of Worry

O God! Refresh and gladden my spirit. Purify my heart. Illumine my powers. I lay all my affairs in Thy hand. Thou art my Guide and my Refuge. I will no longer be sorrowful and grieved; I will be a happy and joyful being. O God! I will no longer be full of anxiety, nor will I let trouble harass me. I will not dwell on the unpleasant things of life.
O God! Thou art more friend to me than I am to myself. I dedicate myself to Thee, O Lord.

- 'Abdu'l-Bahá

(Compilations, Baha'i Prayers, p. 150)

Age 12 (1987) Second to last visit with Grandma

Ok. I did say that this would be a time capsule "eighties" And in my vision of this blog; I imagine a going back and forth between the past and the present time including excerpts from old journals. I took a look at 1987...Yikes. I was a dork. Well, not really a dork, but it is embarassing how much I talked about "crushes" and the such at that stage in my life. I was 12. But here at the end of that diary is a significant memory I have.

So, here goes: (keep in mind that this is in the words of a 12 year old...many spelling (sic) and such errors and probably typos in copying.) and forgive my immature 12 year old perspectives..

Saturday, April 25, 1987 age: 12

I just finished the paper route with dad. He didn't have to work today. So we didn't have to get up at four. I'm not tired at all even if I wen tto bed at eleven and got up at five. Yesterday the most amazing thing happened to me. We went to go visit Grandma at the hospital, because she had a severe shock almost a stroke leaving her right side paralyzed. This happened Monday just after we had spent the weekend with Grandpa for Easter. Grandpa told us Grandma wouldn't even recordnize (sic) us. She couldn't talk or anything. Excpet somehow deep inside me I couldn't realize that. When mom and I went into her room (which last time we were visiting her I was about eleven and wasn't allowed to see her, because of my age) The first look at her I thought she was dead, I was so scaired(sic). I waslked over to her and she was sleeping. I tried to wake her, but I coudlnt' tell if she was awake or asleep. I tried to talk to her, but she gave no signs of recordnition (sic). I read her a healing prayer(my favorite the one I read when I burned my foot). still no recordnitions I told her over and over how much I love her still no resonse that was when I remembered all the times I told her that and she would kiss me and later on when she went to the convelenscent (sic) home she would squeeze my hand, but she just lay there unrecorditionalble. I started to cry. I have never eally felt this way before, except when I couldn't find Panoochie, (our cat) or when I aw that dead cat. When I cried over Mr. Wyman it wasn't my true feelings or when I cried of Grandma Kennedy it really wasn't real, but this time it was true tears not tears that I thought I should shed.

Then mom came over and said a prayer for her. I then kept talking to her and telling her about camping all the fun we had. When I told her stories about the tv series, Waltons, and Little House on the Prairie. The n the nurse came in and I asked if I could hold her hand, I no longer felt like crying. I tried to hold her hand, but she shook it and didn't want any part of it. She probably thought I was a nurse. So I just put my hand over hers and kept talking ot her. I put my head on her sholder and closed my eyes for a while. I wanted to show her my love and that it was me. that was when she turned her head and looked at me. She moved her hand and I held onto it. She sqeezed my hand! and looked at me directly in the eyes. I knew she had responded to me. I told her about the movie Rags to Rickes and I cold tell she liked that. Itold her again that I love her. The time was running out though, we had been with her for most of the time and had to give dad and grandpa a chance to see her. I told her we had to go and I kissed her on the lips and she kissed me back! That gave dad and granpa only 20 minutes to see her. while we waited in the waiting room I saw people talking to a deaf person in sign language. I wen tover and talked to that person with my hands too using letters. When dad and grandpa came back they said granma was very conscous(sic) and even reached for granpas (sic) hand. I have never felt this good in my life.

My Mom

My mother's name was Cindy and she passed away when I was 26 from a heart attack. She was 55. It was sudden and took us all by surprise. I never thought I'd lose my mother at this stage in my life, before I was married and had my children. She would have been an incredible grandmother. She was certainly one incredibly devoted and loving mother. I was an only child, so of course, I became a focal point of my parents attentions and hopes. more than I wanted to be; however, now I miss my mother tremendously.

I miss what I know she would do.. Talk about her grandchildren endlessly. Share and brag about their pictures. Send them gifts and save things just for them. I feel like my children are missing out on that-the kind of devotion and love that she she was overflowing with.

I do believe; however, that she is with us in ways that I can't even imagine...like a guradian angel..part of the mysterious Concourse on High.. Perhaps life would not be so good right now without her "protection"..I feel like she is helping protects us. perhaps.. And her influences..perhaps she whispers in our ears the guidance we need in those rough moments..Perhaps she soothes my children in their sleep.

One example of her love was that she read to me every night. I can't say enough how important it is to read to our children. Reading was something I looked forward to every evening. It comforted me..it was and expression her love, her time spent with me and because of that I have loved books, reading, learning..and because I loved books, I found a way to survive/and sometimes thrive in school.. And now, I read to my children every night..

I would like to write more about her in this blog..about her influence upon me..and about how that impacts my own "motherhood".."womanhood"

This is a poem I wrote about her a few years ago:



Squishy Love: Raw Memory
In my memory of
My Mother:
11/26/06

Body

Warmly soft voluptuous
Folds and handles
Sweat and rash
Womanly musk

Jagged cropped to quick fingernails
Striped stained shirt damp from dishes
Short straight black hair wet
Slow wobbled walk
Unhurried speech
A treasure map of side trips

Her eyes fiercely loving
Searched and squinted
Trying to understand
Straining to see


Soul

Her smiles like her name full of light
A complete unguarded eruption of joy
Gleamed in her eyes.
Her laugh robust, unchecked and unpretentious

An ox of will
A mission she holds fast
Generations of her mothers within her cells
Drive her onward

Strong, she ascended her damaged brain
Her mind remembered
Despite corporeal commands to forget
Her heart would later fail her
But never her will
Forever her will and her love
Perhaps she hugs me still
In the whisperings inside my soul


Lioness of love
Fierce and protective
In the layers of reign I’d feel overwhelmed
She’d see where I would try to hide
Under my bed or within myself
My childhood basked in it
My adolescence rejected it
…..My adulthood misses it….


Memories

Faithfully every night beside my bed,
She read stories
We journeyed together with
Imagined and real characters
A rabbit gentleman and
A spunky pioneer girl
Her low rich womanly voice
Stumbling over words
Soothed me
Into a safe, comforted slumber

Night fears were greeted with patience
She rocked me back into her womb, my refuge.
Her body like a luxuriant fleshy pillow heated my own
In the cold dark house
We snuggled in the company of the gentle ticking of the mantel clock
The humming refrigerator
The crunching wooden joints
As our weight strained the chair

On the couch, the three of us
Our Tradition of Laurence Welk and Waltons
Buttered popcorn and salty tears
Her touched heart would unveil
I fondly remember,
In the shake of the couch
A silent cry, like her unquiet laugh
Unmasked by her all familiar tremor




Her heart open and moved
The child inside
Footprints of who she has always been
Petals opening briefly
Revealing her sentimental heart

Walks, the two of us
Colored lights sparkling over
Snowy cold New Hampshire dusk
The smell of the cold metallic
Snow crunching and melting in my mouth
Memories of the
Quaint New England stores
The white gazebo and fountain
The steepled church -
The Queen of the traffic circle



What lives on…

Now I hold my own children
Against my milk filled breasts and spongy middle

I regret that they do not know her
I ache that I can no longer be a child in her arms
I mourn for my father’s loneliness and
I feel cheated of a mother’s comfort
When I most want a grandmother for my children.

But, in my touch I know it is like hers
And because of her, I can love my babies fiercely
I read to them as she read to me
And walk with them as she walked with me.

I even think that perhaps
Through my touch, they will know her
Squishy love
Someday, in the ethereal
The place where we all eventually
Mesh in a forever embrace